Inspiring, touching stories in Pratt’s ‘Gift of Forgiveness’

‘Gold’ excellent debut novel

‘T

he Gift of Forgiveness: Inspiring Stories from Those Who Have Overcome the Unforgivable,’ Pamela Dorman Books, by Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt

Forgiveness is liberating to the forgiver and the offender. For the forgiver, the suffocation of anger lifts; the liberation of letting go is physically, mentally and emotionally healthy.

Chris Williams forgave the drunken teen who smashed into his car, killing his pregnant wife and two of their children. Williams realized that withholding forgiveness and seeking revenge would lock him into a never-ending cycle of anger. Forgiveness offered him the “ability to regain control when you experience something that seems to take every choice away from you.”

However, as the author notes in “The Gift of Forgiveness: Inspiring Stories from Those Who Have Overcome the Unforgivable,” forgiveness also is complicated.

Should we forgive those who not only don’t ask for it, fail to display any remorse, snap back at any notice of their wrongdoing, or are dead? The author says yes. Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped in 2002, at age 14. Her kidnapping made national news. Smart says forgiving her captors enabled her to move on with her life. “Forgiveness is not necessarily a two-way street,” Smart says, nor is it necessarily the banishing of anger. “It’s allowing myself to feel whatever emotions I feel and to deal with them.”

In Smart’s telling, forgiving also has a practical benefit. “Holding on to a traumatic past does nothing but consume your present emotional space.”

Forgiveness, it turns out, is more a process than a single decision.

Sue Klebold, whose son was one of two shooters who killed 12 students and one teacher at Columbine High School in 1999, says she always will wonder if she could have done more had she been aware of her son’s emotional unraveling. She says she never truly will forgive herself but has come to an understanding; she has let go of her anger and cultivated empathy.

Sometimes, forgiveness takes an unusual course. In return for his wife’s forgiveness for having an affair, Ron Hall agreed to befriend and help a homeless man. Thanks to his wife’s selflessness and compassion, three lives were changed.

Here’s a sure conclusion from reading Pratt’s book: The world would be a far better place if we practiced more of what the people Pratt profiles have discovered. It would be less angry and more giving, less anguished and more empathetic, less vengeful and more loving.

The phenomenon Munchausen syndrome by proxy - in which a parent purposely makes a child ill to gain sympathy and attention receives a fresh update in Stephanie Wrobel’s excellent debut. The psychological thriller “Darling Rose Gold” works well as an intense look at a dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship, a tale of manipulation and how one person’s devastating secrets and lies reverberate through a community and a family.

“Darling Rose Gold” briskly moves with surprising twists as Wrobel delivers assured character studies.

For nearly 18 years, Patty Watts portrayed to the world that her daughter, Rose Gold Watts, suffered from debilitating illnesses that doctors seemed unable to cure, and fed on the sympathy of her friends and neighbors in her midwestern town of Deadwick. Fundraisers were held for “darling” Rose Gold to defray medical bills because caring for her daughter was Patty’s only job. In turn, Patty was there for others, volunteering at functions, garnering accolades for her generosity. “I don’t know how she does it,” was a frequent refrain.

It was all a lie. Patty made Rose Gold ill by constantly inducing vomiting, resulting in life-threatening malnutrition. Patty’s ruse was uncovered when Rose Gold was a teenager. The once popular Patty immediately became a pariah in the community. Nicknamed “Poisonous Patty” by the media, Patty served five years in prison for abuse; the star witness was Rose Gold.

Now 23 and the single mother of two-month-old Adam, Rose Gold agrees to allow Patty stay with her when she’s released from prison, although neither has forgiven the other for the past.

“Darling Rose Gold” delves deep into the psyche of mother and daughter and what motivates each of them. Both are vividly sculpted as Wrobel shows Rose Gold’s lack of social skills and her difficulties at adjusting to independence from her mother, while Patty, who seems so likable, wants to regain control over her daughter. Through the years, each has learned that illness and pity can be formidable weapons when trying to control people. Each believes that lying is easier than telling the truth. Manipulation isn’t an inherited gene but Wrobel shows how it can be learned. “Crooked River,” Grand Central, by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

A bizarre discovery on a beach tears FBI Special Agent Pendergast away from a vacation to try and find answers in “Crooked River,” the latest thriller from Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

Dozens and dozens of shoes with severed human feet inside wash up on an island off the southwestern coast of Florida. Then more shoes wash up. Pendergast is asked to investigate, and he soon invokes the ire of local law enforcement and even his superiors when he decides to work with a student with controversial theories involving how currents and tides in the ocean work in the region. Then more and more shoes begin to wash up on the shore, indicating something truly nefarious is at work.

Pendergast’s partner, agent Coldmoon, works on the case from a different angle that sends him to Central America, and a persistent reporter named Smithback puts himself directly in harm’s way by pursuing answers from the wrong people. The case peels like a onion where one possible clue leads to an impossible answer and a bigger puzzle.

Pendergast is a modern-day Sherlock Holmes who pokes and prods in unorthodox ways until he finds resolution. But what if the villain he’s facing is straight out of a James Bond novel with a sadistic agenda and an intellectual mind that rivals his own? Has he met his match?

Preston and Child know how to craft compelling stories that are both baffling and surprising. The cast of characters feels authentic and moves the story forward in unexpected ways.

While the opening is a bit gruesome, the mystery itself and the steps Pendergast and his allies take to find answers prove the authors are masters of the procedural with a gothic flair. (AP)